LEICA 21mm f/2.8 ASPH (aspherical, 55mm filters, 11.2 oz/317g (12.2 oz./347g with hood), about $4,400 new). enlarge. This free website's biggest source of support is when you use these links, especially this link directly to them at eBay, where they sell for about $4,000 (see How to Win at eBay). It helps me keep reviewing these oldies when you get yours through these links, thanks! Ken.

This is LEICA's most practical ultrawide lens. It is intended for LEICA's full-frame M rangefinder cameras like today's LEICA M7.

Rangefinder-coupled focus and metering work fine on any M camera made since 1954, although you do need to use your choice of external viewfinder for composition and framing.

Even though it's much better and more practical than the foolish 21mm f/1.4, this superb f/2.8 lens seems to have been discontinued as of Spring 2011. There are always plenty of them used at this link to them at eBay (see How to Win at eBay).

This is bogus; LEICA could have made a great lens if it had 7 or 9 blades instead for better sunstars. With only 8 blades, the 8-pointed sunstars will make the images look like they were shot with pedestrian Canon gear.

Only f/16? Over $4,000 for a lens and it only goes to f/16? I suspect LEICA didn't want these lenses getting returned from amateurs who might be tempted to stop them down too far and get unsharp results due to diffraction.

The 12 592 hood is included. It's $180 if lost. The best part about the hood is that it keeps your fingers out of the way.

It has an anodized aluminum base and a molded plastic front. You press the side buttons to release catches to lock it over the front of the lens, an A58 clip-over size.

The clip-on hood clips over a 55mm filter. This means the hood protects my 55mm 81A filter I use most of the time, but it also means I can't read the outer ring of the filter to see which it is. If you use B+W filters with the markings on the front, you're saved.

The front of the hood takes the 14 041 flat cap, which is $30 if lost. This flat cap is semi-soft plastic, so it ought to be indestructable.

LEICA specifies 300g (10.6 oz.) for this black version and 415g (14.6 oz.) for the chrome version. The chrome version must be using all brass everywhere, unlike this black lens which uses aluminum as possible to save weight. Most online sources misquote this, so you'll often see the 415g/14.6 oz. figure for the black lens. Avoid the chrome version; more weight is the antithesis of LEICA practice.

This is common in ultrawide lenses due to the lessened efficiency of lens coatings at weird angles. The center is warm and neutral, while the corners on full-frame (film) can tend to be cooler (less red).

The LEICA 21mm f/2.8 ASPH has some visible distortion, which is really too bad.

The whole reason to bear the burden of rangefinder cameras is to get wide lenses with no distortion, however LEICA designed this lens as a retrofocus lens so that the rear cell could clear the light metering systems of more recent cameras. Thus the optics of this lens have been compromised from LEICA's ideal vision.

Straight lines on full-frame remain reasonably straight along the edges of the frame, but the central part of the image tends to bulge out just a little. The center bulges out just enough to make me wonder why anyone would pay $4,300 for this lens.

Focus is a dream with the little lever, and the diaphragm is also a breeze to adjust. I wish everything worked this well.

My biggest complaint is if I jump into a car while wearing a camera across my shoulder. This is a dumb idea because when I crash the camera will crush my ribs, but even for a short run, oddly the seatbelt of one car was exactly the right thickness to get wedged in between the barrel of the lens and the release button of my M7. It confused me at first, but luckily nothing was really stuck. It just felt that way, and I did have to be careful about pulling out the belt. It never got inside the mount, but stuck firmly enough to suggest it.

Falloff is never a problem in actual shooting. If it gets dark and you need f/2.8, use it.

If you're shooting blank walls, you will see falloff at f/2.8, but for shooting real subjects, it's not a problem with the sorts of subjects you'll be shooting in dim light.

There is plenty of falloff (darkened corners) at f/2.8 if you're looking for it, and less as stopped down.

It never goes away completely, which is normal for ultrawide wide rangefinder lenses. It is helpful for keeping viewer's eyes from wandering out of the frame.

In practice, falloff is never a problem and usually invisible.

I usually show this in monochrome for other lenses, but for these, I've shown this in color so you can see the potential color shifts on a "digital" LEICA M9. On a real (35mm) LEICA, these left-right color variations don't happen; they are a defect int he M9's CCD and microlens system.

Using the the 21mm ASPH profile in the M9, the small color shifts seen below are invisible in photography, even though they are slightly visible here under my devious gray-on-gray presentation.

Without the no or the wrong profile selected, images will be unusable. Don't select the other 21 f/2.8 11134 profile, it doesn't work as well with this different ASPH lens.

Nothing rotates except for the focus and aperture rings, so it's easy to use grads and polarizers. Look through the filter, note its position, and screw on the filter paying attention to the position of the lettering around its perimeter.

On full frame, one ordinary filter works great, but forget stacking them.

I like to stack grads and warming filters, so I use a step-up ring to a larger filter size.

Forget polarizers on ultrawide lenses: the sky's polarization changes with angle, so your results are usually a weird dark band across the sky. That's how God made the Earth, not a defect in any of our equipment.

You can use any 21mm finder of any brand. See LEICA 21mm Finders for more options and details.

My favorite is the plastic LEICA 21mm finder:

Optimum Plastic LEICA 21mm Finder.

The best finder is the plastic LEICA 21mm finder shown here (I think part number 12 012). See See LEICA 21mm Finders for more.

All the finders have a lot of barrel distortion. This affects compsotion, since objects in the sides of the frame will be a lot larger on film than they seem in the finder. This can screw up your composition's balance; another downfall of rangefinder cameras compared to SLRs and view cameras.

If you're only shooting half-frame (M8 or M8.2), you'll only need a 28mm finder since you're throwing away the most expensive half of this 21mm lens' image.

I was slightly disappointed compared to the Zeiss-for-Contax G 21mm f/2.8, which is sharp no matter what you do to it, even in the corners at f/2.8.

This LEICA lens is always sharp in the center, but it's softer in the corners at f/2.8, gets better at f/4, but doesn't get really good until f/5.6. It's always sharp in the center.

You'd never notice this unless you were shooting deliberate tests at infinity wide-open in daylight, but if you do, I prefer the Zeiss-for-Contax G lens. The MTF curves for each lens tend to bear this out.

Other LEICA lenses are so sharp that this one seems relatively lackluster by comparison. It is a very sharp lens, just not as insanely sharp in the corners wide-open as other LEICA lenses, which is to be expected in an ultrawide.

LEICA's newest 21mm f/1.4 is silly because it's too big, it weighs twice as much, it doesn't play well with filters (if you buy an adapter, it might take 82mm filters), it has 50% more distortion and is not generally as sharp as this 21mm f/2.8 Aspherical. At f/1.4, the 21mm f/1.4 has three stops of falloff in the corners, meaning that it's really only an f/4 lens in the corners. (source).

I wouldn't pay $6,000 for a lens I'd like less than this far more compact 21mm f/2.8.

Optically, I prefer the Zeiss-for-Contax G 21mm f/2.8. It's slightly sharper wide open and has far less distortion than this LEICA 21mm f/2.8. I can see distortion with this LEICA lens, but I can't see any with the Zeiss-for-Contax G. According to the manufacturers' data, the Zeiss-for-Contax G has only one-third the distortion of this LEICA lens. That's because the Zeiss lens appears not to be a retrofocus design, while this LEICA lens is.

Of course this LEICA lens is far better for any shooting where you need to calculate depth of field. The Contax lens has no focus scale: you only have access to a digital readout on the Contax G1 and G2 bodies. Therefore I have to add a written note to myself for my new-age hyperfocal distances at various apertures on the Contax lens, and if the far point of my subject isn't infinity, I'm lost.

By comparison, the LEICA lens has an ordinary focus scale with which I can do my calculations.

Each takes the same filters.

The Nikon 20mm f/2.8 AI-s is an SLR lens. It is nowhere near as sharp or as distortion free as any of these rangefinder lenses. I included it for scale.

Amazing but true, this LEICA lens is by far the heaviest, and the Zeiss-for-Contax is the lightest I've tried, which is more in favor of shooting the Zeiss-for-Contax G lens on the Contax instead of the LEICA.

It might seem silly to an outsider, but I love this lens not just because of the great optics, but also largely because it feels so good in-hand. That silly little focus knob lets me shoot faster and easier than I can with the crummy AF system of the Contax G.

I prefer the optical performance of the incredible Japanese Zeiss-for-Contax G 21mm f/2.8, but of course you need to shoot it on a Contax G body unless you go crazy and adapt one for LEICA. If you just want optical quality at a low price along with great ergonomics, the Contax G is mostly a better system.

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